


The Giving Candle

by Fandoms_are_my_lifestyle



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bucky Barnes Remembers, Christmas, Fandom Hanukkah Challenge, Fluff and Angst, Hanukkah, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Jewish Holidays, LGBTQ Jewish Character(s), M/M, Sam Wilson Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Feels, Ugly Christmas Apparel Challenge, Ugly Holiday Sweaters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 08:07:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16740259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fandoms_are_my_lifestyle/pseuds/Fandoms_are_my_lifestyle
Summary: To Steve, Hanukkah - or Chanukah, as the Barnes referred to it - meant spending time with Bucky's family in their tiny three bedroom apartment, the smell of Mama Barnes's fried potato pancakes filling every nook and cranny of the room. It meant listening as Bucky taught Rebecca the traditional Hebrew songs his mother had taught him, which her mother had taught her, even if Steve didn't understand any of the words.It meant leaning into Bucky's chest, watching the candles burn lower and lower, and enjoying the closeness as their mothers whispered in the background.Not all of Bucky's memories are back - specifically, not the ones of them from before the war. Bucky knows who he is, for the most part, but he doesn't remember Them, and it hurts. It hurts because he has Bucky back, but not really, not in the way Steve wants him, and they aren't sure he'll ever remember.It hurts, but Steve's okay. As long as he has Bucky, he's okay.Or: Sometimes all it takes is a candle to lead us home.





	The Giving Candle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Aprilmallick](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aprilmallick/gifts).



> As always, for [doodledevil](https://www.instagram.com/doodledevil/). 
> 
> And for [April](https://mostlystuckony.tumblr.com/); this one was written because of you, so - as the Rascal Flatts song goes - it's yours if you want it.

It starts - as most things do nowadays in Avengers Tower - with Tony Stark. 

Steve's been living in the tower for a few months now, adjusting to life under the accords along Nat and Sam and Bucky, and until this point he had thought he'd seen everything that life with a team of insane superheroes had to offer. From prank wars to movie nights to a caffeine-deprived Clint Barton, Steve honestly thought he'd seen everything this lifestyle had to throw at him. 

He hadn't known how wrong he was until walking into the recreational-common room-hang out floor post marathon-length run to an apparent explosion of red and green, Tony Stark standing in the middle of the mess with a coffee mug in one hand and a tape gun in the other. Steve has to blink and rub his eyes, not entirely sure he's not dreaming or hallucinating. 

He's not, surprisingly enough. 

“Tony?” He ventures slowly, unsure of what to make of the situation. Is Tony drunk? 

“Capsicle!” Tony swings around, smile plastered onto his face but not totally reaching his (thankfully clear and bright) eyes. Tony's guarded around Steve, even after all this time, and to be honest, Steve doesn't blame him. “What do you think?”

“What…” Steve says slowly, spinning slowly in an attempt to take everything in. 

“Don't tell me you're a grinch, Rogers.” Tony says, wagging the tape gun at him. “Where's your Christmas spirit?”

“... It's November, Tony.” Steve said slowly. 

“So??” Tony challenged, wicked glint in his eye. “It's never too early for the holidays! Look, I even put up a Hanukkah candelabra thingy for Elsa over there.”

Steve freezes. 

“A Menorah,” he says faintly, but his mind is far away. He barely registers saying goodbye to Tony and moving to the elevators, heading to the floor he shares with Bucky in a blind stupor. 

Hanukkah. He hasn't thought about Hanukkah in a really long time… not since 1939 at least. Not since his last Hanukkah in New York.

To Steve, Hanukkah - or Chanukah, as the Barnes referred to it - meant spending time with Bucky's family in their tiny three bedroom apartment, the smell of Mama Barnes's fried potato pancakes filling every nook and cranny of the room. It meant listening as Bucky taught Rebecca the traditional Hebrew songs his mother had taught him, which her mother had taught  _ her _ , even if Steve didn't understand any of the words.

It meant leaning into Bucky's chest, watching the candles burn lower and lower, and enjoying the closeness as their mothers whispered in the background.  

After Bucky's father left them, Winifred had decided to raise Bucky and his sister according to her family traditions - the family she'd left behind in Eastern Europe, the family that had turned away from her when she fell in love with an Irish-Catholic, but her family nonetheless. Winters in her household were lit with candles and smelled like fried potatoes no matter how hard the year had been on them, and they always invited Sarah and Steve Rogers to share the holiday with them. Sarah always returned the favor by inviting them to Christmas dinner; the combined holidays were always a bright moment in Steve's bleak winters. 

The elevator dings, startling Steve out of his thoughts, and he steps tentatively out of the elevator. In the months following their signing the accords and moving into Avengers Tower, Bucky's mental health has improved drastically - he's even regained some of his memories - but still, Steve is never quite sure what's going to greet him when he sets foot in their apartment. 

Today seems to be a “good brain day,” thankfully, and Steve takes a moment to appreciate Bucky’s muscular form as the man once known as the Winter Soldier bustles around their shared kitchen. 

His heart hurts, just for a second, and Steve takes a deep breath. Not all of Bucky's memories are back - specifically, not the ones of them from before the war. Bucky knows who he is, for the most part, but he doesn't remember Them, and it hurts. It hurts because he has Bucky back, but not  _ really _ , not in the way Steve wants him, and they aren't sure he'll ever remember. 

It hurts, but Steve's okay. As long as he has Bucky, he's okay. 

He watches for a few more moments before speaking up, sure that Bucky's known he was in the apartment from the second the elevator dinged but unwilling to startle Bucky in the slightest if Steve can help it. 

“Whatcha makin’, Buck?” 

“Cannoli,” the man who was once The Winter Soldier responds, and Steve grins. He knows this recipe. It had been his Ma's recipe, after all, which she had taught to the two of them with much patience and grace. Steve couldn't really cook, even now, but Bucky had taken to it like a fish to water.

It was definitely a good day, then. Maybe even the best day Bucky's had in a while. 

“Did you see what Tony's done to the common room?” Steve asks casually, leaning one hip against the countertop as he watches the other man work. “Looks like Santa threw up all over the room, really.” 

Bucky huffs a laugh, then freezes, a strange look on his face. Steve knows this look well - it's a memory, or a fragment of one, and Bucky's trying to make sense of it. 

“Christmas…” Bucky says slowly, running the word over his tongue like water over rocks. “Why doesn't that…”

“Your family didn't celebrate Christmas,” Steve replied gently. He knew that giving Bucky too much information at once could lead to scaring Bucky off, or even to breakdowns, but he can't help the spark of hope that flares in his chest. Bucky hasn't remembered much from before the war, and Tony's team of psychologists had told Steve not to press too hard because they would come back “when he's ready,” but it hasn't really happened. 

Until now. 

“That's right…” Bucky says slowly, and Steve finds himself holding his breath. “I think I remember… Candles?” 

“That's right, Buck,” Steve says, and he's smiling but he feels a bit like he's going to cry. “That's Chanukah, Buck.” He says it properly, with the hard Ch sound Bucky had spent two weeks teaching Steve to say, and sees the recognition light up in Bucky's eyes. 

“Chanukah…” Bucky repeats, and the word sounds right on his tongue in a way it hadn't sounded on Steve's, syllables hitting the roof of his mouth and rolling off his tongue, and suddenly Steve’s listening to his Bucky explaining the holiday to him in that small apartment from so long ago. 

“I remember Chanukah,” Bucky says, and there's candle flames reflecting in his eyes as he looks at Steve. “I remember my Ma, she'd slave all day over that stove, right? She was makin’ those… those-”

“Pancakes?” Steve pressed gently. “You called them-”

“Latkes! That's right, and Becca, she'd always try to eat them from straigh’ outta the pan, and Ma'd yell at her and smack her with the spatula, and we'd light the candles, and you'd be there, and we'd watch the candles burn down together, right?” 

“Right,” Steve whispers, and he feels his breath catch in his throat. “That's right, Buck.” 

Tears burn behind his eyes and he excuses himself quickly, running out of the apartment and back onto the streets of New York. Maybe if he runs fast enough, he can run back to 1939, to when times were easier and Bucky was his. Or maybe he can run himself into the ground. 

He honestly thinks that running himself into the ground would hurt less than the pain in his heart.

* * *

 

The package comes three days later. 

It's December first, finally appropriate holiday season, and the day before Chanukah is set to begin. 

Not that Steve's checked or anything, he just… happened to have noticed it. When checking his Google calendar. Which he had accidentally added the Jewish calendar to. You know, accidentally. 

Regardless, he gets back from his run that morning to two identical bags on the kitchen table, one labeled “Captain Doritos” and the other “C-3PO” in Stark's scraggly handwriting. He huffs out a laugh and leaves the packages on the table, heading to Bucky's room instead. 

“Buck?” He asks, resisting the urge to open the door without permission. Bucky hums an affirmative from behind the door, and Steve pokes his head into the room. 

“Stark left us each a gift,” he informs Bucky. “I don't know what they are, but I figure it's probably safer to open them together. You know, in case one of us has to avenge the other one's death or something.”

He's only half joking, but he's really hoping that Bucky will accept. Bucky's been acting weirdly these past few days, ever since the Chanukah revelation, and although Steve understands Bucky's need for space, he misses Bucky. 

Bucky looks up at him, and for a moment it's as if Bucky sees straight through him to the old Steve, the one who was small enough to break in half if the wind blew the wrong way and spent too much time sick on his Ma's couch. The Steve that had been hopelessly in love with James Buchanan Barnes. The Steve that James Buchanan Barnes had loved right back. 

Bucky blinks hard and the moment is gone, so fleeting that Steve convinces himself that he'd imagined it. 

“Sure, Stevie,” Bucky says finally. “Lead the way.”

He follows Steve back to the kitchen and accepts the package bearing the robot's name warily, as if afraid it's going to blow up in his face. 

Having been on the receiving end of too many of Tony Stark's idea of a prank, Steve doesn't blame him. Instead, he picks up his package just as warily - it's surprisingly light, he doesn't really know what to make of it - and eyes Bucky through the corner of his vision. 

“Open them on three?”

Bucky nods, and Steve takes a deep breath in. 

“Alright then… one, two,  _ three _ !”

They tear open the packages at the same time, and Steve finds himself staring at the contents. It looks like fabric, but… that's not something he's seen sold in stores. 

The sweater he pulls out of the package is covered in kitschy-looking tinsel and ruffles in alternating red and white, as well as blue tinsel with plastic stars attached as the points. He's 98% sure it's a joke, but…

“That's the ugliest damn flag I've ever seen.” Bucky's gruff voice is rich with laughter as he takes in the offending piece of clothing in Steve's hands. “And ta think, I died for that flag!” 

“Oh please,” Steve snorts. “Ya only half-died and you know it.” Bucky's snort only encourages Steve, who shoots Bucky a smirk. “What'd Stark give you?”

Bucky's smirk widens as he holds up his gift from Stark. The sweater is a deep, navy blue, decorated with six-pointed Jewish Stars and the Chanukah spinning tops Steve recognizes as dreidels. In the middle of the sweater, in bold lettering, the wording reads “HAPPY HANUKKAH YA FILTHY SCHMUCK”. 

Steve can't help himself. He laughs until his sides hurt and tears spring to his eyes. 

“Ya… Ya Filthy-” he chokes. “God, I can just imagine your Ma-” 

And then Bucky is laughing too, leaning on the table to support him as his sides shake and he gasps, “she woulda washed my mouth out with soap for saying somethin’ like that, lawd, can you imagine-”

They're both leaning on the table for support, two giants of man putting their full weights on a single slab of wood, and Steve shouldn't be surprised when he hears a loud “CRACK!”. 

The table breaking underneath him catches Steve by surprise, however, and he pitches forward, falling on top of Bucky and bringing the other man down with him. They're still laughing, lying amongst the scraps of what used to be their kitchen table with the two horribly ugly sweaters sandwiched between them, when Bucky catches Steve's eye. 

Bucky's blue irises burn into Steve's and Steve feels his laugh die in his throat. They're so close, closer than Steve's let them be in centuries outside of fighting each other, and- 

Bucky's no longer laughing either. He holds Steve's gaze steadily, almost challengingly, and Steve is falling, falling, falling into clear pools as familiar as the back of his hand-

Cool lips touch his and Steve is startled out of his trance-like state. Bucky is looking at him, really looking at him, and Steve - Steve's messed up. 

Big time. 

He shoves himself off of Bucky’s chest and turns tail, running out the door of their apartment as fast as he can. 

He leaves Bucky on the floor. 

Steve has really messed up this time, and unlike the other times he's messed up, he gets the feeling Bucky can't save him from this mistake. Not this time.

* * *

 

He spends hours running as fast as he can, unbothered by the rain that had begun about an hour into his treck or the fact that he's wearing only a rain-soaked t-shirt and sweatpants. He runs like he can outrun the past few hours; be runs like maybe he could turn back time and return to the 1930s, where everything was more private but everything made sense. 

When he finally stops, he's somehow managed to run the 11 miles between midtown Manhattan and Brooklyn. He stops, barely panting, and stops to look around, and -

He knows this place. 

Sure, it's changed in the last 80 years, but… he knows this intersection. That hairdresser used to be Jack's bar, where he and Bucky would go after a movie since Jack knew them and didn't charge them too much for a drink or two. And over there, to his right, that supermarket was around when he was a kid; sure, it was called something else, and the colors are brighter now than they ever were back then, but it's still familiar. 

Steve feels the air rush out of his chest and he collapses in on himself, staggering backwards into the alleyway behind him. He recognizes it vaguely as one where he'd gotten beaten up so many times in the past, familiar from years of Bucky finding him and saving his scrawny butt and dragging him back to the apartment to patch him up. He recognizes it, and the realization only makes him feel worse. 

The emotions hit him in a rush, and for the first time since they'd gotten Bucky back, he cries. 

He cries out with pain and fury and loss, mourning the loss of the man he'd loved so long ago - still loved now, even if Bucky couldn't remember it - and mourning the life he never got to have. He cries for the loss of his mother whispering in the dark, for Rebecca singing airily in Hebrew while she set the table for dinner, for the feeling of his cheeks against Bucky's hard chest in the middle of the night, alone in Bucky's bedroom while Rebecca slept at a friend's house. He sobs for the sound of Bucky's voice in the dark, early hours of the morning, worshiping Steve in a whisper as they became one, one ear always listening for the people around them in fear of the world finding out about what they were to one another. 

He crumples to the floor of the dingy alleyway and allows himself for the first time to mourn what he's lost. 

He doesn't know how long he sits on the floor before a long shadow falls over him, and Steve looks up at Sam with a sniffle. He probably looks pathetic - six feet worth of super soldier, crumpled in a small ball in a alleyway that hasn't known cleanliness since the 1800s - but he can't find it in himself to care. 

Sam looks at him for a moment, silhouetted by the rain, and then sighs and shakes his head. 

“Come on, get up,” he says tiredly. “I'm taking you home.” 

So Steve gets up and follows Sam back to his car docily. He's stopped crying by now, and his head hurts and his nose is rubbing but he can't bring himself to care. He walks as if he's walking to his own funeral. 

They're quiet for the trip back to the tower. Sam drives in silence, radio volume playing just loud enough to be audible, and Steve sits and stews in his own thoughts. Before letting Steve out of the car, however, Sam looks at him seriously. 

“He came to find me,” he informs Steve quietly. Steve doesn't have to ask Sam who he's referring to. “He's worried about you. Don't give up hope yet, alright?” 

Steve smiles brokenly at Sam. He wants to believe the other man, he really does, but he doesn't know if he can. 

“Alright,” he replies anyways. At least one of them can hold on to their false hope. 

He heads up to his floor, fully intent on heading straight into his room and sleeping for another century, only to step out of the elevator to be greeted by the one person he wanted to avoid. 

To be fair, they did share the floor, but Steve had honestly thought that Bucky would have left. Instead, Bucky is sat on the couch facing the elevator, as if he's been waiting for Steve this whole time. 

_ He came to find me _ . 

Sam's voice rings in Steve's head, and Steve feels a glimmer of hope in his chest. Maybe he can be forgiven. Maybe they can move on from this. 

“Hiya, Buck,” He ventures slowly.

Blue eyes meet his and suddenly Bucky is in front of him, soundlessly quick and assured as he engulfs Steve in his arms and pulls Steve to his chest. Steve freezes, and then -

“I remember,” Steve hears Bucky whisper. He feels as if he's living a waking dream, hardly able to believe his ears, when Bucky ghosts his lips over Steve's ears, his cheeks, his lips.

“I remember,” Bucky repeats,and Steve's never heard anything so amazing in his entire life. “I remember everything.” 

_ I remember everything.  _

Steve's so happy he could burst.

* * *

 

_ The next night, as the first stars appear in the sky, Steve watches Bucky place the eight-branched candelabra in the window of the floor and light the first candle with a separate candle. He's wearing the horrible sweater Stark had gifted him - they both are - but Steve thinks he's never looked more beautiful.  _

_ The separate one is called a shamash, Bucky had explained to him so long ago, and its purpose is purely to light the others; to contribute to the light by giving away some of its own.  _

_ Bucky had compared Steve to the shamash then, explaining that Steve stood apart because of how willing he was too give himself to anything that mattered. Steve had blushed and burrowed himself closer to Bucky's chest, flowing slightly at the praise while their joint families existed in the background.  _

_ Now, Steve watches as Bucky reads Hebrew words he hasn't said in almost a century off of a piece of paper, and his chest glows.  _

_ The smell of fried potatoes permeates the apartment; latkes wait for them, staying warm in the oven, and soon Bucky will join Steve on the couch. There is no Rebecca singing, no mothers whispering in the background, but there is Steve and there is Bucky; they are together, the way they were always meant to be, and it feels right.  _

_ Steve thinks he wouldn't mind giving Bucky all of his light. As long as it meant he got to keep Bucky like this, he would give light in bounds.  _

_ Bucky joins Steve on the couch, and they watch as the candles burn.  _

_ Everything is finally, finally perfect. _

**Author's Note:**

> Steve's [sweater](https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://melissaburford.typepad.com/.a/6a00e5511e75a08833019b01b63b50970c-pi&imgrefurl=http://melissaburford.typepad.com/burford_designs/clothing/&docid=0b2EwgDN4ya3lM&tbnid=t94oO1nLRuWByM:&vet=1&w=2098&h=2269&hl=en-US&source=sh/x/im). 
> 
> Bucky's [sweater](https://goo.gl/images/KpYx43).
> 
> If any further explanations are wanted re: Chanukah and Jewish traditions, See Your LOR... Or hit up my Tumblr: [fandoms-are-my-lifestyle](http://fandoms-are-my-lifestyle.tumblr.com/)


End file.
